The two men met in the White House in Washington DC in 2012, when Mr Xi was vice-president of China. Mr Obama has said in recent weeks that the cyber-attacks on US government and businesses are unacceptable, and that the US would treat them as a core security threat. China has denied any role in the attacks, and claimed that it has been the victim of similar attacks.

BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO

SO THIS is what the Republican Party's Grand Strategy amounts to: #CancelChinesePresidentStateDinner

Well, no one in the GOP is actually using this hashtag, but if you watched or listened to the televised debate among the (many) Republican presidential candidates last Wednesday, it seems